Dutch government ready for fallout over planned anti-Islam

Dutch government ready for fallout over planned anti-Islam film

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iGKrjDg9E1ysvy0E13_yHoKNRnSQ

THE HAGUE (AFP) — The Dutch government is ready for any possible fallout of a planned film by far-right MP Geert Wilders that attacks Islam as an "inspiration for murder," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday.

"We are ready to react quickly, it is our role to be prepared for calamities," Balkenende told journalists at his weekly press briefing.

Earlier on Friday Dutch media had reported that the government had compiled a secret document on how best to deal with reactions to the film.

Wilders, the head of the far-right Freedom Party, announced in November that he planned to release a 10-minute film this month that will show that Islam's holy book, the Koran, "is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror".

Observers say Wilders might burn or tear up the Koran in the movie. In February last year the MP called on Muslims to "tear out half the pages of the Koran and throw them away".

The Hague fears a repeat of riots when thousands took to the streets in Muslim countries to protest cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005.

The protests left some hundred people dead, Danish embassies were attacked and Danish goods were boycotted.

Balkenende said he could not comment on Wilders's film project because he had not seen the actual movie but stressed the government would not censor anything beforehand.

"The Netherlands has a tradition of freedom of expression and freedom of religion but also a tradition of mutual respect, and provocations do not fit into that. I call on everybody to take their individual responsibility," he said.

According to the De Volkskrant newspaper and RTL-news, the government has already prepared for a possible evacuation of Dutch embassies and citizens from the Middle East.

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Bart Rijs told AFP Friday that there were no special emergency measures for Wilders's film in place at the moment.

"We always have scenarios for possible calamities at our embassies, consulates and other Dutch representations abroad. They are regularly updated," he said.

"There is no reason to believe the Dutch government is now implementing an emergency scenario and there is no reason now to evacuate anybody," Rijs stressed.

Wilders, whose party holds nine of the 150 seats in parliament, insists he will go ahead with his movie despite the uproar.

"Now that everybody is already in a state (over the film) I see it as a confirmation that I should go ahead. I would not be worth a button if I were to capitulate now," he told the HP/De Tijd magazine.

Wilders is known for his harsh anti-Islam stance and has been under round-the-clock protection since the November 2004 murder of outspoken Dutch columnist Theo van Gogh by a radical Muslim.

Van Gogh was killed after he directed a controversial film written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former political ally of Wilders, that examined the subordination of women in Islamic society.

Wilders has received a number of death threats.
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Psalm22:10-11 I was cast upon You from birth. From My mothers womb You have been My God.

Violence fear over Islam film

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2243805,00.html

Violence fear over Islam film


Counter-terrorism alert as a Dutch right-winger launches a movie that will denounce the Koran

Jason Burke, Europe editor
Sunday January 20, 2008
The Observer


The Dutch government is bracing itself for violent protests following the scheduled broadcast this week of a provocative anti-Muslim film by a radical right-wing politician who has threatened to broadcast images of the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated.
Cabinet ministers and officials, fearing a repetition of the crisis sparked by the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper two years ago, have held a series of crisis meetings and ordered counter-terrorist services to draw up security plans. Dutch nationals overseas have been asked to register with their embassies and local mayors in the Netherlands have been put on standby.


Geert Wilders, one of nine members of the extremist VVD (Freedom) party in the 150-seat Dutch lower house, has promised that his film will be broadcast - on television or on the internet - whatever the pressure may be. It will, he claims, reveal the Koran as 'source of inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror'.
Dutch diplomats are already trying to pre-empt international reaction. 'It is difficult to anticipate the content of the film, but freedom of expression doesn't mean the right to offend,' said Maxime Verhagen, the Foreign Minister, who was in Madrid to attend the Alliance of Civilisations, an international forum aimed at reducing tensions between the Islamic world and the West. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other towns with large Muslim populations, imams say they have needed to 'calm down' growing anger in their communities.

Government officials hope that no mainstream media organisation will agree to show the film, although one publicly funded channel, Nova, initially agreed before pulling out. 'A broadcast on a public channel could imply that the government supported the project,' said an Interior Ministry spokesman.

Demonstrations are also expected from those opposed to Wilders beyond Holland's Muslim community - a number of left-wing activists have already been arrested - and from his supporters. Members of a group calling itself Stop Islamisation of Europe are planning to travel to Amsterdam. 'Geert Wilders is an elected politician who has made a film, and that he is under armed guard as a result is absolutely outrageous,' said Stephen Gash, a UK-based member, yesterday. 'It is all about free speech.'

In November 2004, anger and violence followed the stabbing and shooting by a Dutch teenager of Moroccan parentage of the controversial film-maker Theo Van Gogh, a distant relative of the artist.

The attacker said the killing was in response to a film about Islam and domestic violence that Van Gogh had made with the Somalian-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then an MP, which showed images of naked veiled women with lines from the Koran projected over them.

From her self-imposed exile in Washington, Hirsi Ali last week criticised the new film as 'provocation' and called on the major Dutch political parties to restart a debate on immigration that has split Dutch society in recent years, rather than leave the field to extremists.

Wilders announced his plans last November, saying he was making a film to show the violent and fascist elements of the Muslim faith. The maverick politician's remarks about Islam have become increasingly radical. In February last year he said that if Muslims wanted to stay in the Netherlands, they should tear out half of the Koran and throw it away. In parliament he then called for the Koran and Hitler's Mein Kampf to be banned, a proposal that was rejected.

Job Cohen, the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, echoed Hirsi Ali's words and called for a debate 'so that the moderates can make themselves heard'.

During a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week, Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, said that, were Wilders was seen to tear up or burn a Koran in his film, 'this will simply mean he is inciting wars and bloodshed ... It is the responsibility of the Dutch people to stop him.'
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"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

Psalm 82-8: Arise, O God, judge the earth, for You inherit all the nations.

Dutch TV stations refuse to air Wilders' Qur'an film

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/020226.php

It's no surprise that no spine would be found in such quarters. It is a bit of a surprise that the usually reliable Washington Times would headline this article "Dutch TV stations refuse anti-Muslim film." If the film -- which I have not seen -- vilifies Muslims, then such a headline would be justified. But if it does what Wilders says it's going to do -- illustrate quotations of the Qur'an with scenes of Muslims acting upon them by committing violence, then how is that "anti-Muslim"? If Muslims commit violence and justify it by reference to the Qur'an, as they do on a more or less daily basis, why is it "anti-Muslim" to call attention to this?

This is, of course, the same kind of witlessness that in Britain has led Jacqui Smith to label Islamic terrorism "anti-Islamic activity." The assumption -- unproven though taken for granted everywhere -- is that those who commit violence in the name of the Qur'an must be misusing it. Hence they themselves are "anti-Muslim," as are those who report on their misuse.

But in fact, reality is not pro- or anti- anything. It just is what it is.

By Leander Schaerlaeckens in the Washington Times:

BRUSSELS — Private and public television stations have refused to air the anti-Muslim film "Fitna" by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, fearing a violent backlash that prompted the government to raise its terror threat level yesterday.

"I had hoped that a television broadcaster would say: 'You have the right to do this, we will give you a podium'," he told Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

[...]

A local newspaper reported Monday that the Dutch government is considering banning the film on the grounds of national security.

The government is reluctant to set a precedent against freedom of expression, but is worried about a violent backlash and economic repercussions.

The film has provoked official condemnations from Iran, Bangladesh and Pakistan and sparked several demonstrations in Afghanistan.

The Taliban announced on its Web site that it will not tolerate the "Crusader war" waged through "Fitna" and the reprinted Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The cartoons, first printed in September 2005, sparked global riots in which more than 100 people died.

In Afghanistan, protesters demanded that Danish and Dutch NATO troops withdraw from their country, Reuters news agency reported.

Mr. Wilders is defiant against pleas from Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who asked him to reconsider releasing his film. He responded that Mr. Balkenende was a "weak leader" and spineless for refusing to stand for freedom of expression.

Indeed he is, and he and Sarkozy and the lot of them should have the decency to resign. But of course there is no one on the horizon in Europe, except Wilders himself, who would chart a course that would be any different.


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Psalm22:10-11 I was cast upon You from birth. From My mothers womb You have been My God.

The Latest Dutch Film Debacle

The 15-minute production, aptly called Fitna--Arabic for "strife"--has already generated death threats, security alerts, protests, and international condemnations. A NATO commander has complained that the film could put Dutch soldiers serving in Afghanistan at special risk. The Dutch government is preparing to evacuate its citizens from Muslim countries, and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende is warning government officials that "they should be prepared for everything."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/866rpdlv.asp

LATER THIS MONTH, a Dutch politician is scheduled to release a film that reportedly calls for the Koran to be banished and hints that Muslims might be expelled from the Netherlands. The 15-minute production, aptly called Fitna--Arabic for "strife"--has already generated death threats, security alerts, protests, and international condemnations. A NATO commander has complained that the film could put Dutch soldiers serving in Afghanistan at special risk. The Dutch government is preparing to evacuate its citizens from Muslim countries, and Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende is warning government officials that "they should be prepared for everything."

The sorry fact is that Holland and much of Europe are ill-prepared for a contest against religious extremism. This latest debacle is less about Islamist militancy, however, than about the moral vertigo created by Europe's liberal and secular ideologies. European approaches to religion, pluralism, and immigration are failing miserably--and few seem to understand why or what to do about it.

Geert Wilders, the film's producer and leader of the anti-immigration Freedom party, thinks he has the answer: tighten the country's borders, ban the Koran, and clamp down on mosques and imams. Wilders has become odious to Muslims at home and abroad for comparing their sacred text to Mein Kampf and for denouncing Islam as irredeemably violent. "We should never be silent bystanders, as our freedom and civilization are eroded by the Islamization of our culture," he wrote recently in Volkskrant. Under 24-hour police protection, Wilders remains adamant: "Apparently there is no room in Islam
for self-reflection and self-criticism, nor for taking responsibility and self control."

The problem with Wilders is that his "solution" requires a little self-scrutiny: He does not imagine how it might create a self-fulfilling prophecy of violent confrontation. Yes, he's right about the perverse refusal of many Muslim leaders to condemn--unambiguously--the atrocities occurring daily in the name of Islam. Yes, denunciations of his film by self-righteous muftis in Iran, Pakistan, and Syria are laughable given the repression and terror they happily endorse around the world. And it's true, as Wilder says, that "multiculturalism" has allowed religious ideas that threaten human rights to take root. The 2004 assassination of Theo Van Gogh for his film criticizing the Koran's treatment of women, for example, delivered shock therapy to a nation proud of its rationality and secular indifference to cultural and religious values.

Nevertheless, Wilders suffers from his own brand of dogmatism. He admits that most of Holland's one million Muslims are not violent theocrats-in-waiting, but he denies that there is such a thing as "moderate" Islam. What does he expect Dutch Muslims who play by the democratic rules to do in response? Tear up their Korans? "Over the years he became more and more radical," Jeroen Van Dommelen, a correspondent with NOS television based in The Hague, told me. "His latest statements in debates in parliament were that simply being a Muslim is a bad thing. To him actions are irrelevant."

Thus we have a crusade to rescue liberal democracy that would dissolve one of the foundations of democratic government, namely, the separation between church and state. By assuming the mantle of Grand Inquisitor, Wilders seeks to wield state power not only to define the belief system of an entire faith community, but also to stigmatize and criminalize it. Though no Dutch television stations have agreed to show the film unedited--Wilders plans to release it on YouTube within a couple of weeks--most everyone defends his actions as legitimate free speech.

What they're defending, however, is the alleged "right" of a government official in a modern democracy to launch a witch hunt against a religious community--regardless of whether its members are law-abiding or not. Unlike the furor two years ago over Danish cartoons satirizing Muhammad (an uproar reprised by their recent re-publication), the Wilders film represents a political agenda championed by a national lawmaker. "It is not my aim to offend people," he told a Fox News interviewer, just before triangulating. "Some people may be offended. So what the hell? It's not my problem, it's their problem."

It is an ironic turn for the Netherlands, with its record of religious pluralism and assimilation dating from the seventeenth century. Historian John Marshall of Johns Hopkins University calls Dutch toleration "remarkable" and "unmatched" by other societies. Political and religious dissenters of every type--fleeing Catholic torture chambers in France, Anglican prisons in England, or Calvinist crackdowns in Switzerland--found sanctuary. Jews experienced greater freedom of worship in the Netherlands than in any other country on the continent. Two of Europe's greatest advocates for religious liberty, John Locke and Pierre Bayle, wrote their definitive works while in exile in Holland in the 1680s. Locke marveled at how Arminians, Baptists, Lutherans, Quakers, and others "quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven."

All of this was possible because the Dutch republic, established after the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule, defined its national identity in opposition to religious persecution. Political leaders came to believe that the
best route to civic peace and economic growth was a hands-off approach to religious expression--as long as it did not threaten the public good. "The powers under whom we live permit all Christians to serve God according to the dictates of their conscience," wrote Jean Le Clerc, the Amsterdam theologian who first published Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration. "We shall in some measure imitate the equity of the magistrates in reporting without prejudice the views of all Christian societies."

No wonder the Dutch, like many other nations in Europe, struggle with a raging identity crisis. Their magistrates are losing sight of the democratic principle of equity, that is, equal justice under the law. They mistake sectarian enclaves for religious pluralism. They accept a bloated and corrupt welfare state as social justice. They turn tolerance into anything-goes morality. In their secularism, they cannot distinguish between religious conviction and religious absolutism. "The main difference with America is that being religious is absolutely not mainstream," Van Dommelen says. "De facto, the standard is to be a nonbeliever."

The coalition government and others remain at odds over what do to about the Wilders film. The Christian Democrats favor a ban, while Labour defends freedom of expression. The prime minister warns of security problems and economic boycotts, and is looking for a legal way to stop its release. In January, a U.S. military task force in Afghanistan posted website commentary warning that the film could undercut local support for foreign troops (a post that was subsequently removed). Dutch forces in Afghanistan, where angry demonstrations have occurred, are reportedly bracing for the worst. As one soldier complained to a Dutch journalist: "As if we have nothing better to do."

Free speech is a touchstone of democratic societies, as is freedom of religion. Sometimes these rights clash, but a just state strives to uphold them both. It apparently doesn't occur to Dutch elites that when government takes sides in religious questions--under the banner of free speech--it undermines democratic freedom. When it attacks people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion, it lights a match. The fiery result is called Fitna, and it's coming to a theater near you.

Joseph Loconte is a senior fellow at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy and a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online. His most recent book is The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm.
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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.

Wilders cancels public premiere of Qur'an film for security

Wilders cancels public premiere of Qur'an film for security reasons

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020293.php

"Wilders' announcement came as the Danish Prime Minister urged the EU to remember its commitment to freedom of expression." I believe the EU has already forgotten any such commitment.

"Public premiere cancelled for controversial dutch film," from EuroNews (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

Right-wing dutch politician Geert Wilders has canceled the public launch of his controversial anti-Islamic film due, he says, to huge security costs. The 15-minute documentary entitled "FITNA" will now only be viewable on the internet. Wilders' announcement came as the Danish Prime Minister urged the EU to remember its commitment to freedom of expression....
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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.

Dutch Establishment Threatens to Prosecute Wilders and...

Dutch Establishment Threatens to Prosecute Wilders and Claim Damages

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3084

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who is making a 10-minute movie about Islam entitled Fitna (Arabic for “ordeal”), has felt compelled to cancel the March 28 press conference where he intended to show his film. The Nieuwspoort press center in The Hague, which is run by a board of journalists, publishers and government press officers, demanded that Wilders pay 400,000 euros for extra safety measures. “Apparently, you have to be a millionaire to organize such an event,” Mr Wilders said. “Even if I had the money I am not going to spend it on a press conference.”

No Dutch broadcaster, public or private, has been willing to show the film. There are indications that Fitna will also be banned on Youtube, which removed a clip featuring Mr Wilders two week ago, on so-called “ethical grounds”.

Dutch international companies, fearing a boycott of their products by Muslims, have announced that they intend to hold Mr Wilders responsible for a loss of profits and markets in the event of a boycott. They have asked Gerard Spong, one of the top lawyers in the Netherlands, to see whether a court case claiming damages from Wilders will be possible. Mr Spong and several other lawyers have already lodged some fifty formal complaints against the politician for “incitement to racial hatred and discrimination of Muslims” because Mr Wilders expressed the opinion that the Koran is “a fascist book which should be banned in the Netherlands.”

Last November, when Wilders announced he was going to make a movie expressing his view on Islam and the Koran, Doekle Terpstra, a member of the board of directors of the Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, told the Dutch media that “Geert Wilders is evil, and evil has to be stopped.” The Unilever director, anticipating a worldwide Muslim boycott of Unilever products (brands such as Axe, Ben and Jerry’s, Best Foods, Brooke Bond, Colman’s, Cif, Dove, Glidat Strauss, Heartbrand, Hellmann’s, Imperial Margarine, Knorr, Lipton, Pepsodent, Sunsilk, Unox, Vaseline, etc.), called upon the Dutch to “rise in order to stop Wilders from preaching his evil message.”

Mr Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament, has been living under police protection for almost four years. Muslim fanatics have threatened to assassinate him for his outspoken criticism of Islam. The politician has no fixed residence and has to live in army barracks or other heavily secured premises.

Radical Muslims have threatened to indiscriminately kill Dutch citizens or retaliate against the Netherlands with a terror attack if Mr Wilders’ movie is released. This week, Dutch people with the surname “Wilders” received death threats. Though not related to the politician, three Wilderses received anonymous letters ordering them to prevent their namesake from releasing his movie. If they fail, the letter states, “the first deadly victim will be you, one of your children or grandchildren.”

Last week Henk Hofland, the nestor of Dutch journalism, proposed on Dutch television that the Dutch authorities lift Geert Wilders’ police protection. “Let him feel what it is like for those whose lives he endangers,” Hofland, the former editor of NRC Handelsblad, the leading newspaper in the Netherlands, opined. Mr Hofland, who was given the title “Dutch journalist of the century” by his colleagues in 1999, asserted that, if Dutch citizens get murdered in retaliation for Wilders’ opinions on Islam, not the assassins are to be blamed, but the politician. Apparently, to Hofland and his ilk being critical of Islam is worse than slaughtering innocent people in the name of Islam.

Hofland’s declaration did not lead to widespread indignation, which indicates that Mr Hofland is not the only Dutchman willing to deliver Mr Wilders and other critics of Islam to those who want to murder them. All this could have been predicted. In fact, it was. Last month I questioned the wisdom of Geert Wilders here, asking whether he was on a suicide mission:

If the Wilders movie results in (fatal) attacks on Dutch citizens and Dutch interests abroad, it might lead to an anti-Wilders backlash. The Dutch are not Danes. […] Like the Spanish after the Madrid bombings they might paint their hands white and surrender. Rather than banning the Koran, they might ban every criticism of Islam. In 1940, the Dutch surrendered to the Nazis after barely five days when Hitler bombed Rotterdam. The British never surrendered, despite the blitz. Perhaps Geert Wilders thinks that his compatriots are braver today than they were 68 years ago.

Given the predictable Dutch reaction of turning against those who endanger their cosy, hedonistic existence, perhaps Mr Wilders does not think his compatriots braver today than before. Perhaps he is on a suicide mission, and fully realizes it. In an interview last week, Wilders, who is married but has no children, said that he is prepared to die for his opinions. He is not endangering the lives of others, as Mr Hofland implies; it are his Islamist enemies who are threatening others with death.

Maybe it is Mr Wilders’ preparedness to fight and die that bothers and enrages the Dutch business and media establishment. If so, many of them will be relieved when Mr Wilders gets killed by his enemies. They might be quite happy that having got rid of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, they are now rid of Geert Wilders, too, so that Unilever can continue doing business in the Arab worlds while Henk Hofland and his admiring fellow journalists can continue advocating free speech for everyone except those who are critical of bullies who threaten kill anyone who does not agree with them.

All this, as said, should have been common knowledge. The Dutch showed what stuff they were made of two years ago, when they made life impossible for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an elected member of their parliament, just like Mr Wilders. Her neighbours sued to get her removed from the apartment where she was living under police protection. The court of appeal ordered Ms Hirsi Ali to leave her house within four months, invoking… the European treaty for Human Rights. As the judges said:

The court considers in its ruling that the neighbours have been put into a situation that has contributed to them feeling less safe in their own house. That feeling is extended to the communal living spaces of the apartment complex, but also to their own apartments. The court argues that this is a severe violation of one’s private life (as per Article 8 of the European Treaty for Human Rights).

Ms Hirsi Ali was booted out of her own house by virtue of the European Treaty for Human Rights because Muslim fanatics threatened her, thereby causing her neighbours to “feel less safe in their own house.” Soon, Mr Wilders, whatever one thinks about his opinions, his motives or the wisdom of his decisions, will be booted out – also in the name of grand principles such as human rights – because he makes others feel less safe. That is his crime: While the majority of the Dutch are willing to submit, he is not.
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"The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State - This is Islamic Peace"

A moderate Moslem is one who sends others blow themselves up.